The Castle Over Twilight
by Tannhaeuser
Summary: I actually began this story when the cartoon was in its initial run, back in 1984. It was a comic then; it has gone through several forms, and is still pretty weak in parts. Still, such as it is...


**I.**

_The Pleasant Violence of the Young_

It was a typical Saturday, the 23rd of June, in Carmel: the angry shrieks of the clock radio broke through the pillow mound, under which Jack Glasfinster lay buried. Werewolves, he realized dully, werewolves were feasting on his flesh. One was sitting cross-legged on his chest, with the boy's heart still beating in his mouth. Jack rather wished this were not so. Hearts, he thought, should not beat so loudly when we are sleeping, and fuzzy yellow werewolves should keep the light out better. The nightmare struggled mightily to keep possession, but 'a sound clock radio is a mighty god', and the wolf's last howl of the night became Jack's first of the day: "Yeeeeeeeooowww!"

"Jackie? What's up, honey?" A long gray-brown braid and well-worn rose-decked dressing gown stood at his door, floating on the wafted aroma of buttered eggs and bacon.

A muttered "Oh, swell." A few deep breaths. "Nothing — nothing, Aunt Mae. Just got a cramp in my leg." Jack was a practiced and fluent liar. His foster aunt knew this, just as she knew her ward combined a Gothic hunger for ghost-haunted abbeys with the tremulous timidity of a more than usually cloistered nun. She eyed him doubtfully.

"It's these morbid movies you're watching. It's these shows, that _Kolchak_ garbage…"

The practiced debater with a weak argument will always seize the minor point.

"Worthy Aunt, that show hasn't been on for seven or eight years. It couldn't be causing my nightmares…even if I had any, which — hey, what's that smell?" With the smile of a Raphael cherub, the tousled boy slithered past, and made a ruthless and successful attack on a wholly defenseless breakfast.

Mrs. Glasfinster glanced around the empty room and shivered. Those piles of dog-eared paperbacks. Last year's Tolkien calendar. A skull, which Jack had nicknamed Holbein. _The Depths of the Sea_, on the wall next to the Dali _Crucifixion_. A morbid room.

"Maybe," she thought, "if he could find him a nice girl…"

It was a typical Satyrday, the 13th of Windymoon, in the Realm: the angry shrieks of the crypt-bats broke out of the barrow-mound, under which the Sayerin lay buried. Six adventurers from another world were seeking in that grimly place a path to lead them home.

It was a site of some archeological interest. The barrow itself was shaped rather like an elongated Mayan pyramid, or an over-turned bread-pan, and hewn out of some kind of dark plutonic rock. Flat reliefs of fish-headed and toad-bodied dæmons crawled unwholesomely along each course. A wide gate stood facing the setting suns, and goggling beasts spread their bat-wings along the lintel of the barrel vault, whence a series of steep, cracked steps plunged into the earth.

"Hank, do we _have_ to go down there?"

" 'Fraid so, Sheila. You heard what that old wise man said."

"Wise man, huh. More of a Wise Guy, if you ask me."

"Errr-ic!"

"Oh, gimme a break!" He assumed a reedy sing-song: " 'The Mirror of Darkness will find the Way to the Home that was Lost.' " He thrust out a petulant lip. "That guy probably writes the sub-titles for Kung Fu movies. We don't even know that this Sarah chick is at home."

"I'm hoping that she's not," shuddered Sheila. "Mehh, hyeahhh," seconded the unicorn.

"Look, I don't like it any better than you guys do — but we haven't seen Dungeon Master for weeks, and we've got to take whatever shot we have…even if it is a shot in the dark." The young Ranger nocked an arrow of light, and they descended into the vault.

The columned burial chamber was hewn of black marble and obsidian, polished so that their own pale reflections thronged round them, so many horrid ghosts in the sickly blue light of sconced corpse-candles. Black marble sarcophagi alternated with images of bestial gods with the heads of wolves and cats and hook-billed ravens, before which crouched black altars, stained with the blood and ashes of

ancient holocausts. Deep-devouring pits gaped by these, the unyielding repositories of the bones of victims nameless and unnumbered. In the center, a looming coffer of jet, rose the rune-spelled Shrine of the Sayerin.

"We found it!" yelled Bobby, and all the children erupted in war-whoops and cries of 'All right!'; Sheila hugged Bobby, Bobby hugged Uni, and Presto and Diana swung round in a victory dance.

"Uh, guys…" quavered Eric, pointing.

A cold voice rumbled through the darkness: "Well done, my young enemies. Or, perhaps, not so well."

Hank stiffened, his bow at the ready. "Venger," he said grimly.

There before them towered the hateful form, bat-winged, horn-crowned. "I know what you have sought here. A wasted effort. Only I can show you the portal that leads to your world. Give me your weapons, and you may go freely. Refuse, and you will never leave this tomb!"

"No way, Frankenstein, Jr.!" retorted Diana, lengthening her staff. "We've beaten you before, and we'll beat you again!"

"Aarrraaaaghhh!!" thundered Venger, and blue flame erupted from his outstretched claws, striking and thrusting open the surrounding tombs. Twelve slimy gray shapes of unpleasantly discontinuous humanoid form lurched out of the exposed sarcophagi.

"Aw, just what we needed," groaned Presto, "a visit from some of Venger's old ghoul-friends!"

"Bobby, watch out!"

"Yargghhh! Take this, Boneheads!"

A golden glow shook forth from the magic club, gleaming on the obsidian wings of a gargoyle-supported arch. "Batter UP!" shouted the young Barbarian, as the black stone cracked, splintered, rained down on three shambling corpses.

"You mean batter DOWN!" quipped Diana, simultaneously tipping two drooling ghouls down a bottomless shaft with her staff. "Have a nice trip, guys!"

"Way to go, Diana!" A bolt of golden light lit blond hair and encouraging blue eyes. "You too, Bobby. Sheila, get behind me! If these ghouls are like the ones in the Forest of Nevermare, they can see you, even when you're invisible." A second, a third blaze of light shot from the enchanted bow. The ghouls gibbered and blinked.

"And they can paralyze with a touch!"

"I don't 'em need to touch me!" yelped Eric, pushing the eagle-blazoned shield desperately against two pairs of claws that sought to rend him and the green-robed Magician. "I'm paralyzed already! C'mon, Presto, hurry up, can'tcha?!"

" 'Hat… uh…save us from fear and dread…' "

"Prestohhhhhh!"

" '…and make these Dead Guys really dead!' "

It was not pretty. Maggots seemed to erupt spontaneously from the ghouls' decayed flesh, and swarming quite audibly and malodorously, devoured them to the marrow. They themselves then obligingly collapsed in heaps onto the floor, dried up and blew away.

"Oh, sick," gulped Eric, and sat down greenly on an altar.

"Well," said Presto, weakly, "you can't get much deader than that."

Fireballs and shafts of light flickered and flamed in the black mirror of the barrow. Tombs and statues were scored and shattered with flashes of magic fire. Yet the five remaining ghouls were inexorably forming a ring, driving the children back up against the Shrine…

"C'mon, guys!" urged Sheila, desperately, from the cornice above them. "Climb up on the tomb!"

"Alley-oops!" Hank hefted Bobby up to his waiting sister ("Hey!"), and the mewling unicorn to her young master. Diana vaulted to the shrine's top, and held her staff down to Presto and Eric.

"I can't — I can't hold on," panted the Magician. "You guys just leave me."

"Oh, shut up," barked Eric, and seizing the smaller boy around the waist, grasped the staff and hauled Presto and himself to the lid of the shrine.

"Hank, Hank!"

The ghouls closed in. Though they hated and feared the gleaming light of the magic bow, they had to strike but once — and the boy would grow still. They were five. The Ranger was trapped with his back to the shrine. They would soon taste of his heart's salt blood.

"Hold, crypt-walkers!" the cold voice of their master commanded. The ghouls drew back snarling, irresolute, longing for the warm flesh, yet bound by their dark lord's spell.

"Young Ranger, I give you one last chance. Surrender your weapons now, and you and your friends may go free. Otherwise, the ghouls will feast tonight!"

"There is a man for you," broke in a fresh, young voice. "Here is a pretty girl waiting to be asked to dinner, and this fellow would rather frivol his time away with some old relics he dug up somewhere … "

"What is this?!" Venger and his ghouls turned from their purpose, to behold a willowy maiden of perhaps some sixteen years at the entrance to the burial chamber. She had hair of a dark coffee color, and eyes blue "like far-off mountains turnéd into clouds"; she wore a peliçon of watchet, edged in pale gray fur (squirrel, or something of that nature) over a short, mulberry-colored gown, and on her head, over a caul, a rather piratical hat with a bold panache. Imagine a 14th century Karen Allen.

She stood with a calm and rather provoking smile, spinning, and tossing up, and catching one-handed several small spheres that glowed softly, lavender, pale-blue, soft green, and yellow, and rose.

"Gentles all, let me direct your attention to our featured attraction." The balls spun in fascinating patterns of stars and hoops and angles. "As seen before all the crowned…and horned…heads of the Realm."

The weaving and interweaving of the opalescent spheres seemed to bear some charm, entrancing even the burning eyes of Venger. He turned toward her, and the ghouls, sensing easier prey and tenderer flesh, and very willing to avoid the terror of the Ranger's bow, lurched and shuffled toward the girl.

"Be ware that this performance is not intended for the young, who are _strongly_ advised to go about their own business. Try this not at home."

"Eric…" whispered Diana, "when I say, 'Now,' we'll pull Hank up to safety … Eric!"

"Huuhhhnn?" said the cavalier, dazed, with bright circles spinning in his eyes. "Oh, yeah … right …" He leaned far over the edge of the shrine and laid hold of Hank's shoulder.

"Not yet! … Oh— now, then!" Diana leaped to seize the Ranger's other arm, and hauled with all her strength to heave him upward.

"Just leave me, guys — don't risk it!"

"Whhhaaa-aaaaat?!" Venger whirled to see Hank halfway to safety, his undead minions far out of reach of the boy.

All but one. Eric had moved too soon, before all the ghouls had drawn away. With a leap and a snarl, the nearest struck out with a cold gray claw — Hank uttered, stiffened, and grew limp.

Zzzzzzssssssshhhhhh!! Like a bolt of azure lightning, a blue sphere jolted into the back of the creature's skull. With the screech of a scalded cat, the ghoul flinched and stumbled. Diana and Eric drew the Ranger to safety.

"Safe!" cried the Juggler, with shining eyes. She waved her hand, and the cerulean sphere sailed back across the room, and came gently to rest in her palm. "There's an end of your threats, old Hobgoblin!"

"Girl, you shall pay dearly for this interference!" roared Venger.

"Oh, shall I?" she answered, coolly. "Now, pardon me, but it is an ill custom to make the invited guest pay — and yet here with me is one, I think, who will pay you more than you bargained for."

A little, wizened figure entered the chamber, smiling benignly. "Good evening to you all!"

"Dungeon Master! Hurray!!" broke from the top of the shrine.

"So, old one, this is another of your games?"

"There is much to be said for playing games, Venger, for in playing games, the young may learn the wisdom of the old — and the old may learn the wisdom to renew their youth."

"You will learn, at least, how little your power is against mine! Servants of Darkness, destroy them!"

The ghouls shuffled toward the Dungeon Master, who had seated himself placidly on the pedestal of one of the gargoyle images that guarded the threshold, and the Juggler standing beside him. He had taken one of the girl's little glowing spheres — the yellow one — and was idly spinning it.

"Against the power of darkness," he said, reflectively, "all that is needed is a little … light."

He held up the ball, and a glorious golden radiance like the aureole of an archangel blazed throughout the chamber. Venger flinched with a wing before his face, and the ghouls, with a hissing gasp like a damp firecracker, fell back, withered, and were consumed.

"And now, my children," continued the Dungeon Master gaily, "come down!" With a gesture somewhere between a conductor broadening a phrase in a symphony and a paperhanger flattening a roll of wallpaper, he levitated them into the air and then down gently, but breathlessly, into a half-circle around him. "How is the young Ranger?"

"I-I don't know," trembled Sheila, who had pillowed her magic cloak beneath Hank's head, and held one of his hands between hers. "He's so pale…" (and indeed, the stricken ranger looked like the marble effigy of a young crusader) "and I can't tell if he's breathing…oh, Dungeon Master!" She tried to choke back a sob, but failed, and pressed her face into Hank's hand.

"Is he —?" faltered Diana.

"Do not fear, young ones. The ghoul-sleep cannot harm anyone by itself — though I would not advise sleeping near a pack of hungry ghouls." He knelt down by Hank's side and laid a gnarled hand gently on the boy's forehead. "Awaken, my son!" A pink flush spread across Hank's face; he drew a few deep breaths, and then sat up quite suddenly, shaking himself like a wet dog and blinking a few times. He caught sight of the kneeling figure.

"Dungeon Master! How long have I been out?"

"Oh, Hank!" cried Sheila, and "You're okay!" cried Diana, and they caught that surprised and gratified young man on either cheek with a kiss. "Ewww, gross!" said Bobby, and turned away to nuzzle Uni.

"Oh, well done, my father!" cried the girl in the plumed hat, and she embraced the Dungeon Master.

"That's Dungeon Master's daughter?" whispered Presto hoarsely to the Cavalier.

"If she is, she's sure lucky she takes after her mother."

"Errr-ic!"

Hank wavered, a little unsteadily, to his feet. "Thanks, Dungeon Master — and thank you, too," he said, turning to the girl in blue, "Miss…"

"Andromeda the Juggler — but do call me 'Andi'."

"Andi, then," he said with a laugh, "If you hadn't interrupted when you did, I'd have been a goner."

"You need not thank me," she said, with a neat little pink blush, "I am sure you were in no real danger."

"Truly," said the Dungeon Master, "there is no real danger to you in all the Realm. The one real danger that can threaten you would come out of your own world, and that one is —"

"Uh, excuse me, Dungeon Master," interrupted Presto, "I-I-I hate to c-contradict you, but I think there's one p-pretty real danger threatening us right now!" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

There stood Venger, with a smile of evil intent twisting across his visage. A black mist was gathering at his feet, winding itself about him in bands like flights of dark birds. "Old fool," he hissed, "you have revealed to me at last how to seal the doom of these troublesome children — and your own." The blackness rose, obscuring him; it stretched itself out on either side, from wall to wall of the ancient tomb — it faded, to reveal the hideous form of a vast Shadowbat. Venger's face and form had shriveled to a bestial mask and skeletal trunk, which barely served to bind together the great twin sails of his wings.

"Skrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeee!" shrieked the abomination, and launched towards them.

All flung themselves aside — all but the Dungeon Master, who flung up his hand, spreading the palm like a fan. Instantly there sprang up a wall of sparkling amber flame, into which the spiny horror shot like a nightmare cannon-shell. A shattering flash. Silence. Venger had gone.

"Dungeon Master!" yelled Bobby, bounding up from where he had thrown himself and Uni, "Weren't you scared?" The young ones gathered around the gnomish figure.

"Scared, Barbarian? Of what?" The Dungeon Master seemed puzzled. "But come! Though I have banished Venger for now, he will not remain so forever," he proceeded, crossing the tomb, "Why not open the Shrine of the Sayerin now, and find the one you were looking for?"

"You gotta be kiddin'!" shrilled Eric, "The coming attractions were bad enough…" (He waved a frenzied had at the open sarcophagi) "…and now you wanna start the _feature?"_

"C'mon, Eric," said Diana, twinkling, "I'm sure Dungeon Master wouldn't open the tomb if there were any danger." ("Myeahhhh," said Uni.)

"Hank was almost the Blue Plate Special at the Coffin Café, and Little Mr. Happy there said there was no danger then — doesn't that tell you he's nuts?"

"Oh, Eric!"

The Dungeon Master was standing before the dark Shrine. He turned to Presto.

"Well, Magician, a spell holds the Sayerin bound in sleep. Reverse the spell, and you will awaken her."

"But I don't know how to — oh, there he goes again," complained Presto, gazing at the little dust devils that spun where the Dungeon Master had been standing.

"Farewell, good father," said Andi, softly, and "My-eeeeee" echoed Uni.

"Well," said Diana, with a shake of her glossy curls, "what do we do now?"

"Hey, guys," said Sheila, who had been gazing at the shrine, "There's some writing on this tomb. Maybe it'll tell Presto how to break the spell."

"Aw, Sheila, it's all in runes. I can't read… well, hey, that seems to say something… _mer varswilit sih… swilizot lougiu_ the sky… the moon will fall — hey, guys! I can read it! I can read it!" He peered closely at the graven letters, flushed with excitement and holding his glasses in both hands. "It looks like a little story… and not a very nice one."

"Go ahead and read it, Presto."

"Aw, Hank — can't we wait for the Reader's Digest Condensed Version?"

"Read it, Presto," said Hank flatly, ignoring the Cavalier.

" 'Gorgo and Mormo and Baubo went riding, and found you sitting beside a black fountain, and each stood forth and sang you to slumber. Gorgo bound mind, and Mormo the senses…' "

"The whole thing sounds pretty senseless to me," said Eric, yawning.

"…and Baubo the body and all of its feeling. The sea will be swallowed, the sky will smolder, the moon will fall, the world will be…' "

"Jushht a lotta ridicoorushh… eeyyaahhhhnnn… shibberrisshhhh…"

"…withered, no stone will be standing, before you awaken.' Hey, guys! I've got it! Dungeon Master said, 'Reverse the spell!' All I've got to do is read this backwards! Guys? Guys?"

"Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…"

Presto turned round, and pushed his glasses back up his nose, blinking. "Oh, gee…"

In little heaps all round him his companions lay sleeping.

"Oh, gee…" repeated the Magician. "Hat, we'd better be right about this thing — or I think we're in big trouble." He pulled the magic hat off and held it out, gazed up at the rune-spell, and recited. " 'Awaken you before, standing be will stone…' " Carefully, he picked his way backward through the spell.

It worked, as the saying goes, like a charm. As he spoke the words "Riding went Baubo and Mormo and Gorgo," the Seven Sleepers yawned and stretched their limbs and rubbed their eyes.

"Gee, Hank, knocked out twice in one day — that's kind of a record for you, isn't it?"

"That's a record you're welcome to break any time, Eric," said Hank, grinning.

"Yes, Sir Cavalier," said Andromeda, with a thin smile, "It is the sort of thing that constantly happens to those who fight bravely. Did _you_ not know?"

"Watch it, Eric," growled Bobby, "or I'll knock you out!"

"Please."

"Golly," said Sheila, "I feel like I've been asleep for a thousand years."

"I think it would have been for a thousand years," answered Diana, "if Presto hadn't figured out how to break that spell. Three cheers for Presto!" The others joined in. "Hip, hip hurray!"

"Aw," said that boy, bright scarlet, "it was nothin'."

"Y-you mean, you wish it was — Look!"

With a crack like a hundred light bulbs being simultaneously hurled onto a concrete pavement, the lid of the shrine shattered into fragments. A white fire shot in a pillar from the shrine, striking the ceiling and exploding in a glory of garnet and golden stars. These began to float in slow swirls around the room, filling the barrow with ever changing rose and aureate light.

"Oh, great," moaned Eric, "Now we're in the Disco of the Dead."

From the heart of the incandescent pillar came a voice like the clear silver ringing of bells. "Not so, Cavalier. The Dark Undead have been banished from this place, and the Light that slept has awakened."

The children all glanced at the column of flame, but the white-hot brightness stung and defeated their eyes.

"Look not on me!" rang the voice of silver, "but look to the Black Mirrors." In the polished marble and obsidian they could see her now, a lady of silver fire mirrored in the black stone.

"Who — who are you?" asked Diana.

"I am Urvalla the Wise. For a thousand thousand years I have dwelt in the Barrow of Black Mirrors, giving counsel to those in need. Five hundred four and forty years ago came… the Dark One."

"The Dark One?" asked Sheila, breathlessly.

Urvalla answered gravely, "Venger." The flame wavered — the darkness seemed to crowd in around them, then recede. "But now you have defeated the Dark One, and Urvalla the Wise is ready to aid you."

"Forty days journey to the North and the West, on a spur of the Ogreridge Mountains, there rises a ruined castle. In the time of the ancient kings the Great Councilors of the Realm set it there to guard a world-portal hidden in a cavern high above the Forest of Twilight. If you enter the portal between the ninth hour and midnight, at the height of the red star Almaret, it will return you to your own world."

"Beware, for there is much danger. Long ago the Dark One came against that land with his cruel orc-soldiers. They attacked the villages with whips and swords and torches, and forced the people into slavery, and slew the lord of the Castle Over Twilight. Now evil reigns in Demmerung Castle and half-beasts prowl the shadowed forest."

Andromeda started. "The Forest of Twilight? But I was born there, in the village of Greenlinden. My mother told me how my father fell fighting the orcs by the side of the Waldgrave of Demmerung, and how we hardly escaped alive."

"The Free Lords of Lindenhall were close indeed to the Waldgraves of Demmerung; and in that land, Andromeda of Greenlinden, you shall find both what you seek and do not desire, and also what you desire and know not that you seek. Go, then to the Castle Over Twilight — and so farewell." With these words, the Sayerin vanished.

Andi turned quietly away, and went a little apart, and sat on a ruined altar with a sober countenance. The rest glanced uneasily at each other.

"Oh, perfect," said Eric, slumping against the shrine, "A haunted forest, and an evil castle. Now all we need is the Wicked Witch of the West."

"Well," said Presto, "Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho! To the Twilight Zone we go."

"I think we'd better make camp here in this clearing," said Hank. "We can't make it to the river before sunset, and I don't think we ought to try traveling at night, with those dark elves on the prowl." They laid down their blankets, therefore, and gathered wood for a fire, and set a watch.

They were eighteen days out of the Valley of the Sayerin. The villagers had rejoiced to learn that the ghouls had been destroyed and their oracle restored, and had gladly given the young ones food and supplies for their journey — but they knew nothing of the Forest of Twilight, which lay nearly two hundred leagues away beyond the Nightmare Mountains. Then Andi had joined their quest, guiding them through the foot-hills of that terrible range, and battling with them the Witch-Lord of Montestrega, and the Harpies of the Zenevian Marshes, and the Drow of the Schwarzalpen Pass. By her advice, they were making for the River Regin, where they could take ship and sail north to the noble town of Lindwurms, and so westward overland to Demmerung.

"What about it, Presto? Can you make us a fire?"

"I dunno, Hank. You remember what happened last time."

"Yeah,' blurted Eric, "and you still owe me a pair of monogrammed underpants."

"Perhaps I can be of service," said Andi, reaching into the escarelle that hung at her hip-belt, and pulling forth the pink and yellow spheres. "Lo, here in my hand I have the little Wonders of the Age — if I might have the fire-wood you have gathered placed in a pile. Just so. (Step back, Cavalier; you cumber me.) As you can see, this feat of legerdemain requires, not five — not four — not even three —

but a mere two of the mystical magical Juggling Spheres. Now observe, noble lords and lovely ladies."

She began to juggle the two balls, slowly at first, but as they began to fly ever more quickly, they commenced to glow, forming in the air a hoop of gold and ruddy fire.

"Now all it needs is a simple gust of breath, and…"

Still juggling, she knelt down and blew strongly through the center of the ring of light. A stream of flame shot down from the midst of the circle and struck the wood, kindling it roaringly afire, whereupon, rising and tossing both spheres high into the air, she caught them in her purse, slapped down its flap, and swept her plumed hat off in a grand curtsey.

"All right!" "Way to go, Andi!" "What a show!" "That was great!"

"Gee, Andi," said Eric, "that was…pretty good. Where'd you get the magic juggling whatzits?"

"They were given to me on my naming-day. It is the custom in the Realm for a patron to give gifts to children when they come into the world. Is it not so with you?"

"Well," answered Sheila, "I got a silver mug with my name engraved on it from my aunt, but I never got anything _magic_."

"Ah," said Andi, her eyes alight, "that was Dungeon Master's gift."

"Hey, I get it!" exclaimed Presto, "You called Dungeon Master 'my father' because he's your Fairy Godmother!"

"Oh, _**I**_ get it!" echoed Eric. "Because he's her mother, she calls him her father, but

since he's a fairy, her father is her mother, so she calls her mother father, and her father mother, and — aw, forget it — I'm goin' to sleep."

There were laughter and 'good nights' all round, Sheila chose to take the first watch, and the young adventurers soon settled into a sound slumber. But Andromeda the Juggler did not so. She lay awake, watching the golden wavering of the fire, and the slow progress of the lights overhead, until at last she rose quietly, and proceeded with a pensive face to where Sheila sat on the gnarled root of an ancient alder.

Sheila looked up with a smile. "Can't sleep, huh?"

"Yes — that is, no. I thought I would come and watch with you awhile. You do not mind?"

"NO way. I'd enjoy the company. I _hate_ being out here by myself." Andi smiled back, and sat down on a neighboring root, a little lower and at an angle, her hands folded in her lap. They sat silent awhile.

"Mistress Thief," she said at last, "when I met you in the Barrow of Black Mirrors, it was…not entirely by chance."

"Yeah, I figured," answered Sheila, "especially when Dungeon Master came in with you."

"Yes," said Andi, "he has been my guardian all my life, and it was by his counsel that I sought you out. How happy I was! For I had heard, as all have heard, of your noble deeds: how you defeated the wizard Kelek; how you rescued Strongheart from the Prison of Agony; how you restored King Lawrence to the throne of his fathers. And I — I hoped you might rescue my people, and restore the Lords of Demmerung and Lindenhall. Yes, I was happy — would you not be, to have such hopes? Instead of wandering, to have a home again? Instead of being alone forever, to have a people? Instead of being a poor strolling player, to be a noblewoman of the Realm?"

"A noblewoman?"

"Yes, good Thief. I am heir by blood to the Free Lords of Lindenhall, and by plight-troth to the Waldgraves of Demmerung."

"By plight-troth? You mean, you're engaged?"

"No, Mistress. It is an old custom in the Realm for great families to be affianced as children. I was not nine days old when I was pledged to the infant heir of Demmerung." She sighed. "He, poor lad, was taken by the orcs when Castle Demmerung fell — and orcs have a great relish for the flesh of infants." She shuddered. "So I am left, Waldgravine of Demmerung, and Free Lady of Lindenhall — and I wish I were anyone else in the Realm!"

"But why, Andi — I mean, Lady Andromeda — I mean — well, why don't you want to be you?"

"Oh," she said, with a bitter little smile, "because now I shall be 'My Lady' and not 'Andi'; and because — all of you, I mean — have become…dear to me, and if you come to Demmerung you shall depart to your own world, or even…" She stopped suddenly.

"Well, Andi," said Sheila slowly, with her eyes turned toward the camp, "if it makes you so unhappy, why take the job? You don't have to be anybody's 'Lady,' if you don't want to be."

Andromeda of Lindenhall rose trembling, with a very white face, and returned to the campfire. But her face was not turned to the fire, but to where someone lay sleeping; and so it long remained.

Sheila also rose, and watched her go. She then did something very odd: she savagely kicked an entirely blameless alder root, and sat down, with her face in her hands. Why this should be I cannot tell.

Neither noticed the thin shadow over head, lurking in the broader shadow of the ruined alder trees. Nor did they mark its departure…

" 'Glasfinster the Mage prepared to look yet again into the Mirror of Worlmmmmmmphhhghh…' " declaimed Jack, his purple toothbrush smearing out the last few words. "Ptui! 'With a muttered incantation he donned his magic robe' " — the black, dragon-embroidered house-coat his Uncle Joe had sent from Korea — " 'and the conjuring hat he had won of Alrune the Enchanter in magical combat' " — this a much-battered fur hat that had belonged to one of his Aunt Mae's brothers.

Stalking grimly out of the bathroom, he continued to recite: " 'Glasfinster had laid ready Kessler's Magic Flask and the Pouch of Ineffable Wedges; and taking these, and the Cloak of Invisibility, he made his way to the Cavern of the Mirror of Worlds.' " Jack laid the Dr Pepper and Doritos on the table by the barrel-back chair, and pulled the TV's On/Off Button. He turned the dial to the mystic twelve, and seated himself in the Throne of Wonder, with the old army blanket thrown over his knees.

" 'Mirror, Mirror, that I see

Tune me in to "D&D"!' "

"Master! The young ones! They have escaped again!" said the TV.

("Hey, a new one! I wonder if Stan is watching." Stan Holstein was a rather pudgy, rather greasy youth, with buckteeth and an intense manner, whom Jack gamed with — not that either liked the other much. But Jack was moody, and did not make friends easily.)

"They have defeated the Drow you sent against them."

("Oh, swell! Would have liked to have seen that!")

"No matter. I now know Dungeon Master's secret, that only one from their own world can defeat these young meddlers."

"But I have other news. The girl you spoke of who travels with them…"

("Bad writing — they should have shown her first.")

"…the Heir of Demmerung!"

"What? Then Dungeon Master's young ones must be seeking the Castle Over Twilight. Shadow Demon, prepare the Mirror of Worlds!"

("Hey!" exclaimed Jack, delighted.)

"But, Venger!"

"Now!"

"Y-y-yes, Master!"

The dark spirit began to revolve in a wide arc before his tyrant, trailing his tail behind him like a black comet. Faster and faster he sped, forming a vortex where the dim fumes swirled together, a whirlpool whence sulphurous vapors began to rise.

Venger stretched forth his hands. "Slave, through the Mirror of Worlds…"

('Derivative,' thought Jack, 'but sound.')

"…Come from the farthest land!"

('That is darned impressive animation — must be twelve, fifteen frames a second.')

"Through wind and darkness I summon you!"

('Heck, twenty —maybe even twenty-four! How the devil can they afford it?' He leaned close to the glowing screen.) **Don't do it, Glasfinster!**

"Now, come! Before me stand!"

Jack Glasfinster, you should have known better. You sneered often enough at that idiot kid on _Lidsville_, and the Marshalls on _Land of the Lost_ — and first thing you know, you get _yourself_ sucked into a parallel universe. Reader, do they never learn?

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!"

Apparently not.

Something very like a slab of concrete hit the back of Jack's head. A scarlet flash exploded in his eyes. Then everything went black.

Slowly. S-l-o-w-l-y. Gotta wake up — "Ohhh…!" Jack's head ached. 'His mind,' as a fellow I knew once wrote, 'His mind was still swimming along in that pool of gray-brown murky gummy stuff in between the land of dreams and the land of daylight waking,' and Jack felt nearly bad enough to deserve it. He heaved himself toward consciousness like a hippopotamus heaving itself out of a mud-hole. He was dreaming. He was dreaming about D&D. They had made a live-action version, and he was in it. He was —

"Ohhh…!"

"Rouse the human, Pisacha."

"Yeeeeeeeooowww!" A whip-cord had lashed across his calves. Jack sprang up, wide awake with no trouble.

"What the —!"

It was — it was like something out of the Hildebrandt Brothers, or _Prince Valiant_. He was in a long hall, whose columns twisted like serpents toward a raftered ceiling, graven with Viking monsters, and inlaid with gold and topaz and chrysoprase. There were no windows; all the light came from flaming cressets and golden pillars uplifting burnished mazers of fire.

Fantastic figures stood about in groups, like a cocktail party thrown by the Brothers Grimm: sallow men with lank, dark hair, dressed like extras for MacBeth; black-skinned, white-haired elves (some of these, to Jack's embarrassment, very obviously female); bearded, stone-colored dwarfs, with steel picks thrust through their belts; pig-faced orcs, smelling sourly of sweat and urine (their greenish color, he learned later, came from the parasites that invariably infested their filthy hides); an ivory-horned ogre; great wire-haired wolves with huge paws and very white teeth.

And, enthroned on a raised dais, Venger. If the Zeus at Olympia had been a Hades, carved not of gold and ivory, but of jet and porphyry and blue steel, he might have appeared thus. Jack had been accustomed to laugh at him in the cartoon. He was not laughing now.

"Venger! Owww!" Jack dropped to his knees. The whip had again cut across his legs, impelled by the sinewy arm of a creature, man-like but with a bestial head like a bear or puma, in lacquered black armor like a kind of Roman samurai's.

"I see you know who I am. Then know what I am — your Master. If you fail again to address me as such, I shall give you to my knouter Pisacha for the space of an hour. He has killed men in a tenth of that time. Do you understand?"

"Y-y-y-yes, M-Master!"

"Enough. Depart, Pisacha." The man-beast left. Jack rose painfully to his feet, astonished to find himself wearing a high, round cap, seal or otter skin; a dolman-sleeved tunic and surcote, reaching just below knee-length, and made of woolen cloth "as soft and black as sin"; a black leather belt and gypsire; black woolen stockings; and soft, black leather boots. (Not that he could have described this

garb so well as the Omniscient Narrator, of course. Jack just thought that he looked like a Cossack — a thought that curiously emboldened him.)

"Uh…what do you want from me, Veng— uh, Master?"

"You shall deliver Dungeon Master's young ones to me at the village of Greenlinden."

"But, Master…"

Jack started back. He had not noticed the shape that hung in the air by Venger's throne. Shadow Demon. Jack felt repulsion for the vile creature, as one does at the photograph of a child-murderer. He had once or twice felt sorry for Shadow Demon. Now he felt that he would gladly endure an hour with the knouter, just to see Venger strangle the thin fiend.

"How can one feeble human defeat six? And they have the Weapons of Power!"

"You're not exactly Hulk Hogan yourself there, Bucko!" Jack snapped.

To his vast surprise, Venger smiled at this. "What do you say, my other counselors?"

A huge, hairy, one-eyed orc in a bat-winged helmet grunted, "Shadow Demon is right. Humans are worthless without weapons."

Jack flared up. "I'll admit, Lord Venger, that even one of those weapons is enough to mash me into guacamole — but, by golly! even a plate of guacamole could do the job as well as Shady and the Pig-Boys there!"

Applause burst forth from the humans, nasty snickers from the elves and dwarfs, and a great guffaw from the ogre.

"Human!" the orc roared, drawing his scimitar, "I'll slit your guts for you!"

"Marshal Grock," remarked Venger, "Shall I recall Pisacha?" The orc subsided.

"Dread Lord," queried a swarthy Elf-maid wearing the horned miter of a Priestess of Lolth, "if it be but a question of a weapon for the human mortal — are there no blades in the armories of Venger?" She turned toward Jack with a sneer. "Speak, mortal! What weapon do you use in your own world?"

The boy considered. "Slander."

A low chuckle came from the left hand of Venger. "Mahavanjar," purred a cold, cultivated voice, very like George Sanders in _The Jungle Book_, "the creature is not entirely without wit, and perhaps even some boldness. Our strength has failed.

Might not his weakness succeed?" (This was a panther-headed man with a long figured robe and a ruby glowing at his breast — who gave Jack the indefinable horrors.)

A starved-looking young orc with warts on his snout spat out, "By Surma, Kabandha Khan, you babble like a filthy elf! What weakness can beat strength?"

"Treachery, my dear little piggy. Nag is the great black serpent of the world; Karait is the little brown worm in the dust. He that fears Nag will play with Karait — and Karait will slay him."

"Yes, Kabandha Khan," hissed Shadow Demon, "but even your karait has a fang. What has the human got?"

"The human, too, will have a fang," pronounced Venger. "Approach, human. I shall give you an enchanted blade!"

'Oh, boy!' Jack thought. 'Maybe a magic Sword of Life Stealing — or maybe a Scimitar of Devastating Large Sections of the Countryside!'

Venger opened a claw, and gazed intently into his palm. A triple stream of vapor, like the smoke above an oily flame, began to writhe there. "Ra'im focalor halphas," he hissed. The three snaky vapors bound themselves together like the serpents on the wand of Mercury. A volcanic glow gathered itself on Jack's outstretched palm, and the black vapor streamed from the claw to the waiting hand. It wavered, stiffened, and formed a crooked black blade, like the accursed kris of Malaya. Its pommel was gemmed with carnelian, and runes of deceit were graved on its hilts.

It was 8 and ¾ inches long (22.23 cm), altogether. About the size of a dinner knife.

'Oh, swell. A toothpick, no doubt, for someone with very uneven teeth,' thought Jack. Aloud: "What the heck is this thing, Venger — uh, Lord Venger?"

"It is the Dagger of Deception. With it you may disguise yourself as anyone whom you know. You have but to speak the spell."

"You mean like, 'I'm wonderfully self-reliant, because I am the Jolly Green Giant' —

What the —!" Leaves had thrust themselves dramatically out of Jack's Cossack outfit, and the world seemed reflected in a green mirror. He hastily dropped the dagger, and was relieved to find himself restored to his former state.

"Har!" sneered the warted orc, "Even giants in the human's land are puny!"

"Aye, Thargas," said another, "and clumsy!" All the orcs laughed, and Jack flushed red as he recovered the blade.

"As you see, the dagger will not greatly change your stature — nor will it give you the abilities of any person or creature. If it leaves your person — or if you die — the spell will be broken."

Jack bowed. "Yes, Master, I understand. Let me try a different form." He held the dagger in front of him, peering narrowly at the orcs, imagining hard.

" 'Dirk of disguises, blade of blending,

Let me look like thick-headed Thargas!' "

A wild roar of laughter rose from Venger's courtiers. Jack had made himself — as he had intended — into a bizarre parody of the orc-captain. Slobber ran down his blunted, rotting tusks, his great head wobbled back and forth on a scrawny neck, and as for warts! All the bullywugs in the Realm could not have raised so many, not if they had kept at it with all four flippers for ten thousand years. He yelped in a whiney, snuffly voice: "Oh, I am the great orc-warrior Fart-gas! Shadow Demon, come and save my bacon! Those puny human children have beaten me again! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!"

Cheers from the men, and the elves, as Jack swept them a bow. Kabandha Khan was one vast grin of very sharp teeth. Shadow Demon hissed.

" 'Enough, my blade, Jack's himself again,' "

recited Jack Glasfinster. Regaining his form, he dropped on one knee on the steps before Venger, his cap in one hand and the dagger pointed in the other (it certainly made an effective picture), crying out, "Your servant humbly thanks you, Master! Your magic exceeds all expectation!"

The orc hurtled into him like a rabid boar. "Human, you die!" he shrieked — which saved Jack's life, for it occupied the tusks that could have ripped him open. Thargas had not even drawn a weapon; it seemed he would tear the human apart with his mere claws. Down the steps they rolled together, breaking apart, the orc's greater weight taking him farther. Jack was stunned for a moment, but he recovered first, for the orc, mad with rage, had forgotten the drawn dagger, and had gashed himself in the arm with it as he hurled himself on the boy. Jack gathered himself up, and stood swaying, gripping the dagger, white with terror and fury. The orc staggered to its feet, gripping its arm where the thick black blood flowed. "Kuolema matkoihisi!" it screamed, and flung itself at him. Jack leapt aside — barely — and the orc fell wallowing on the steps before Venger.

"Now, fool," hissed someone in Jack's ear, "put that blade to its proper use!" and propelled him onto the laboring orc. He gagged at the close, foul stench. Thargas was still screaming curses; he was forcing his way up, he was staggering to his feet; he was clutching at his knife — and Jack plunged the dagger into his back, thrusting, thrusting with all his weight on the heft. The black blood spewed into his face; the orc shrieked… and fell, and lay still. Jack dragged himself off the body, and wiped the blood from his eyes with his cap.

"Excellent," said Venger. "I have chosen well. Human, I take you now as my servant, and name you — 'Assassin.' "

' "Assassin," ' thought Jack Glasfinster, 'Oh, swell'; and retched.


End file.
